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It is the policy of Fairbury Public Schools and its Career and Technical Education programs not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, disability or age in its activities and programs, including employment policies and practices.

Snow days: short term sacrifice, long term gain

On account of the unsafe winter weather conditions Fairbury experienced overnight Thursday, the high school administration made the decision to postpone the beginning of school on Friday two hours, while also keeping the regular early Friday dismissal time.

Students were in school for a total of three hours and 20 minutes, leading some to question why school wasn’t completely called off.

The high school schedule for a two-hour late start coupled with an early Friday dismissal completely eliminated block 1/2, and allots only 21 minutes for block 7/8. Blocks 3/4 and 5/6 remained the same length for a Friday schedule and lunches also remain unchanged.

Sophomore Jillian Caroon had a lot of questions about the purpose of such a short day.

“We don’t even know if it counted as a full day, and we never get informed about anything,” Caroon said.

Other students believe that the reason school wasn’t completely called off was on account of the elementary students, not junior and senior high school students.

“They had school because if students in the elementary did not go to school to eat lunch, they would go Friday, Saturday and Sunday without eating a meal,” senior Trent Grizzle said. “It’s pretty silly for people to only be thinking about themselves and not the wellbeing of other children let alone the safety of other.”

Superintendent Stephen Grizzle confirmed that the decision was made with the end of the school year in mind. He explained that the school year has a “sliding end” meaning there’s an extra five days allotted for snow days. The fewer snow days called means the earlier summer break starts.

“For EVERY snow day we don’t use, we chop off a day. We make the final determination of what the last day of school is at our March Board meeting. To date, we have only used 1 snow day. That leaves 4 unused. Which means our last date COULD be May 21st instead of May 25th. Isn’t that nice?” Mr. Grizzle said. “We had to endure a weird, shorten day today, but by suffering through that, we get out much, much earlier and your summer starts much, much sooner!! ‘Short term sacrifice, long term gain!'”

Although some disagreed with the administration’s decision, administration took many factors into consideration while keeping in mind the best interests of the entire school system.